A Retrograde Neolithic Backward Step

Tribalism Puts Racism On Steroids

Maori in New Zealand (or at least some of them) have paddled themselves well up the creek and lost the paddle.  With a peculiar strain of deeply ingrained racism they have had the effrontery to argue that there is something racially superior in Maori adults taking care of and raising Maori children.  

So, when a Maori person (male or female) has a long history of child neglect and abuse, and when the State moves to take the vulnerable children away from the irresponsible and neglectful parent(s), it is interpreted as a racist attack upon Maori.  They go on to insist that if it were true that the parent(s) have neglected and harmed children in their care, it remains essential that the children be raised by "whanau"--by which is meant the wider tribe of the irresponsible parents and relatives. 

Such tribalism is generally regarded in other jurisdictions as primitive and backward.  And rightly so.  Racism is bad enough.  Tribalism is worse.  It is worse because not only does it discriminate negatively between races, but its "refinement" insists upon discriminating between Maori tribes.  If racism is evil, tribalism is exponentially evil. 

Winston Peters is not a politician we generally hold in high regard.  But on these issues we warmly endorse his stand.

Imprisoned In the Past

Tribal New Zealand

The tribalism of modern Maori has largely ebbed away, with a few occasional exceptions.  Life and times in the early 19th century in New Zealand was another matter.  

Everything changed when a northern paramount chief, Hongi Hika managed to get passage to England.  Harold Miller, former Librarian of Victoria University takes up the story:

In 1820 Hongi got himself carried to England to see for himself the wonders of the western world.  He was truly astonished by what he saw but one thing especially stuck in his mind: over all England there was only one ruler!  One King George over all England--why not one King Hongi over all New Zealand?  On his way home he turned the rich presents with which he had been loaded into muskets and prepared to apply the lessons he had received. . . .

Already before 1820 the Northern tribes had ravaged as far as Cook Strait; but now things were worse.  Thousands were killed or enslaved and whole tribes were driven from the lands that their ancestors had occupied for centuries.  In 1820 when a missionary visited the Waitemata district it was teeming with people.  From the top of a hill he could see ". . . twenty villages in the valley below, and . . . the largest portion of cultivated land I had ever met in one place in New Zealand".  There were, he estimated, at least four thousand people.  . . . The people were friendly but uneasy.  They asked for missionaries and were disappointed when he spoke of delay; "Our eyes," they said, "will be all dark before that time arrives and we shall never see them. . . . " In a few months, Hongi came down upon them with two thousand men and a thousand muskets swept them away.  Within a short time the whole Ngati Whatua tribe had vanished and not a living soul remained on the tribal lands. . . . And so it went on through the 1820's [Harold Miller, New Zealand (London: Hutchinson's University Library, 1950), p. 11f.]

 On the surface, tribalism appears dead and buried amongst modern Maori.

Douglas Wilson's Letter From Moscow

Tribal Truth

Douglas Wilson
Blog&Mablog

INTRODUCTION

I want to offer a “get yourself oriented” explanation for the lunacy that has apparently descended upon virtually everybody. A fogbank of dunsical folly, stretching the length of the entire East Coast, has worked its way across the nation, and so it is that we hear distant, muffled cries, from out there in the fog somewhere, “Who’s to say what a little boy is?”

Change the metaphor. The degradation and collapse of our civilization proceeds apace, and while millions of Christians in that civilization think that “something is wrong,” few of them have any idea of just how wrong it all is. And we have erstwhile leaders who have assumed the role of reassuring us, trying to make us think that, provided a culture is unbelieving, there is no appreciable difference between its rise and its disintegration. Take a glance to the right in order to check out a recent promo vid on a glossy web site for one of those Big Name Christian Conferences.

And so let’s begin with the theopolitics of this, and then move on to cite a few illustrations of it snatched from today’s headlines. I won’t say what these examples are about exactly, but one of them rhymes with Sal Planken.

The Disintegration of the West

Amoral Tribalism

In an amoral age, such as ours, morality becomes tribal.  What is right is what our tribe says is right; what our tribe condemns is wrong, period.  Everything depends upon who is judging, us or "them".  In this context, "them" refers to anyone not of our tribe.

In a previous age, tribes and tribalism was considered to be primitive.  Making ethical decisions or moral constructs by referencing a tribe was to display ignorance and base prejudice.  But, as amorality has spread throughout the Western world increasingly people have resorted to tribalism.  Nowhere is this more evident than in modern political discourse.  Political Party A condemns Party B for a certain act or policy.  But when Party A does the exact same thing, overnight it becomes a wonderful idea and a great leap forward.

One of our local NZ scribes recently got stuck into the Labour Party for its gross hypocrisy over donations.  Our cynical take is that there is nothing to see here and that all should move along.  When there are no ethical absolutes, tribal loyalties are what bind, ethics be damned.  How else could any person or group function?

Not so long ago, Labour professed outrage at its political opponent "selling access to Cabinet Ministers for cash".  The idea is that big donors would be invited to have dinner with the "people of power".  Corruption!  Shame!  Evil!  We get the point.  Now, however, Labour racked with impecuniosity, has launched a similar scheme.  The details are not relevant, the operator is.  Bottom line: when our political opponents do it, all is evil.  When we do it, holiness flows down in sanctimonious rivers.

Behold the inevitable tribalism when amorality is the norm.